Living History Lectures ~ Tames Alan
Historical, educational, hysterical. One costumed woman tells it like it WAS.
General Historical Facts
A bride price is the money paid to the father by the groom to compensate for the loss of work his daughter does for the family. This money was usually paid before the contract could be concluded. Posted 6/01/2011
Italians were the first Europeans to use Chinese black powder to manufacture fireworks. Posted 7/01/2011
A good candle provides barely a hundredth of the illumination of a single 100-watt lightbulb. Posted 12/01/2012
The word husband comes from Hus (house) and Bunda (owner). Under feudal law, serfs could not own a home. For their military service, yeomen were given a house and a few acres of land. By the 13th century, scheming mothers wanted their daughters to marry a house owner—husband. Later, the word came to mean any man joined in marriage whether he owned a house or not. Posted 6/01/2015
A dowry was provided by the bride’s father to compensate the future husband for the upkeep of his daughter. Eventually this became the bride’s inheritance and was paid to the groom or his family. It was usually returned if the groom was not satisfied with the bride. Posted 6/15/2011
In Europe, before the mid-19th century, blue dye was extracted by boiling the leaves of a plant in the mustard family called woad. Posted 2/15/2012
Smallpox was so-called to distinguish it from the great pox, or syphilis. Posted 1/15/2013
It is considered bad luck for an actor to whistle on or off stage. The reason for this superstition was that before the invention of walkie-talkies or comms, the cues for the theater technicians were coded whistles given by the stage manager. This is because originally stage crews were sailors hired from ships in port. Theatrical rigging has its origins in sailing rigging, and therefore sailors. and by extension theatrical riggers, used coded whistles to communicate scene changes. Actors who whistled backstage could confuse the crew into changing the set or scenery, which could result in injury, death, or being fired. Posted 1/01/2021